To promote and explore the hobby of amateur radio. Providing quality training for all amateurs and in all aspect of the hobby.

Thu, 03/03/2016 - 17:37 -- M0VGA

The Pixie is a well known and very good value 40m CW QRP kit. I used it as a build project during my Intermediate studies in 2015. I’m certainly no CW / Morse operator, but it was interesting to construct and it worked!
Pixie operates on 7.023 MHz, with such low power (<1W) you can see that the “dummy load” supplied is adequate just being a resistor.
I heard good CW signals on 40m using my Aerial-51 OCFD, temporarily mounted from an upstairs window, no fancy beams required for this project. If you’re thinking of having a go with a Pixie, I’d recommend using some PCB cleaner before starting soldering, these kits are less than £5 (inc delivery from China) on a popular auction site for a reason…
At our local club (Ripon & DARS) a few of us attending the Intermediate course used an oscilloscope to check the quality of the output as part of our training. It wasn’t perfect of course, but given the price and simplicity of the circuit this is a very effective learning tool.